One of the most famous modern
artists of Central America, the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo was famous
for her naive/primitive style of painting,
notably her self portraits,
depicting the emotional effects of her pain and semi-invalid status as
the result of a 1925 traffic accident. Her painting is influenced by several
schools, such as surrealism
and realism, as well as symbolism.
She was the wife of Mexico's famous fresco
painter, Diego Rivera (1886-1957), one
of the leaders of the Mexican
Murals movement, while her own pictures were also influenced by Mexican
folk art. She herself was a
firm adherent of "Mexicanidad". In her mid-30s she was appointed
Professor of art at Mexico's National School for painting, graphics and
sculpture. Today, in addition to being something of a pioneer of feminist
art, her work is seen by art historians as having connected the concerns
of popular art with those of the modernist avant-garde.

Famous paintings by Frida Kahlo include:
Self-Portrait on the Borderline (1932, Private Collection), Henry
Ford Hospital (1932, Dolores Olmedo Foundation, Mexico City), What
the Water Gave Me (1938, Isadore Ducasse Fine Arts, New York), The
Two Fridas (1939, Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City), Suicide of
Dorothy Hale (1939, Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona), and Self-Portrait
with Cropped Hair (1940, Museum of Modern Art MoMA). Kahlo remains
an icon of the feminist movement, a key figure in modern
art in Mexico, and is - along with Fernando
Botero (b.1932) - one of the great 20th
century painters of Latin-America.

Early Life

Kahlo was born in a town on the outskirts of Mexico City. At the age of
six, she developed polio and never fully recovered the use of her right
leg. It has also been suggested that she also suffered from spina bifida,
a disease which may have affected her spinal cord and leg development.
At the age of 18 Kahlo was involved in a bus accident, and suffered serious
injuries, which crushed her right foot and dislocated a shoulder.

These physical handicaps were to play an
important role in her art in future years. Recovering from her injuries,
lying in bed for months, Kahlo's mother presented her with some paints
and a mirror. Kahlo created hundreds of self portrait studies, teaching
herself the skills of drawing and oil painting.
She began to capture herself and her sufferings in a series of unique
paintings. She once said: 'I paint myself because I am often alone and
I am the subject I know best'.

Marriage to Diego
Rivera

At the age of 22 Kahlo married the much older painter Diego Rivera - the
most famous of the trio of Mexican muralists, the two others being David
Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974) and Jose
Clemente Orozco (1883-1949) - who had helped to launch a campaign
of public art glorifying the Mexican revolution,
through the use of colourful mural painting
on buildings across the country. The two had met when Kahlo approached
him, looking for advice on her art career. Always in Rivera's shadow,
this is how she painted herself in their wedding portrait Frida and
Diego Rivera (1931, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). In the painting
Rivera carries brushes and a palette, while Kahlo portrays herself in
a submissive manner, every inch the wife. Their marriage however was tumultuous
from the start, both taking numerous lovers. They divorced and remarried
again in 1940, but the second term was equally torrid. Kahlo felt she
was the maternal protector of Rivera, and depicted this in her painting
The Love Embrace of the Universe (1949, Collection of Jorge Contreras
Chacel, Mexico City), where she holds Rivera in her arms, he is naked
as a new born baby.

Autobiographical Paintings

In 1930 Kahlo became pregnant, but unfortunately due to the accident she
suffered in 1925, she was forced to abort. She miscarried again two years
later. The trauma of these events led to the painting of Henry Ford Hospital
(1932), where she depicts herself lying in bed, bloodied surrounded by
images of her aborted foetus. Other works from this period include: A
Few Small Nips (1935, Collection of Dolores Olmedo Foundation, Mexico);
Fruits of the Earth (1938, Collection Banco Nacional de Mexico);
and What the Waters Gave Me (1938, Isadore Ducasse Fine Arts, New
York). Kahlo painted with vibrant colours which displayed overtures of
indigenous Mexican culture and folk art. The sadness of her works impressed
artists like Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky, as well as many Surrealist
artists who admired her paintings.

Portraits

Kahlo recorded the people in her life with her paint brush. Her portrait
art has clear influences of Symbolism, Realism and Surrealism. Two
of her best known portraits of friends include: Portrait of Diego Rivera
(1937, Gelman Collection, Mexico City) and Portrait of Dona Rosita
Morillo (1944, Museo Dolores Olmedo Patina, Mexico City). Of the 143
paintings she created, 55 are self portraits, and often incorporate elements
from the physical and mental wounds she endured. She said 'I never painted
dreams. I painted my own reality'. Some of her best known self-portraits
include: Self-Portrait (1937, Dedicated to Leon Trotsky, National
Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington); Self Portrait with Monkey
(1938, Albright-Knox
Art Gallery, Buffalo); The Two Fridas (1939, Museo de Arte
Moderno, Mexico City); Self Portrait with Cat and Monkey (1940,
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin); Self-Portrait as
a Tehuana, Diego on My Mind (1943, Gelman Collection, Mexico City);
and Self-Portrait with Loose Hair (1947, private collection). In
1946 Kahlo painted herself as a Deer (Collection of Mrs Carolyn Farb,
Houston). One of her last self portraits was Portrait of Doctor Farill
(1951, private collection), where she depicted herself in a wheelchair.
Kahlo also made a number of self portrait drawings, but unlike her paintings,
these were mainly abstract.

Exhibitions

It was not until 1938 that Kahlo started to sell her first works, as a
result of a successful exhibition in Mexico City. The same year she met
the high priest of French Surrealism, the painter and sculptor Andre
Breton (1896-1966) who invited her to exhibit in Paris, an exhibition
he organised with Marcel Duchamp. The Louvre purchased one of her paintings,
The Frame (1937), which became the first work, by a 20th century
Mexican artist ever to be purchased by an internationally renowned museum.
In 1940 she exhibited The Two Fridas at the International Exhibition
of Surrealism, Mexico City, and the following year her art
was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Boston.

n 1942 Kahlo was appointed professor of
Mexico's National School for painting, graphics and sculpture. She also
participated in group exhibitions in New York. In recognition of her achievements,
Kahlo was awarded the Prize of Moses in 1945, for the category of Public
Education. In 1947 some of her paintings were included in the Exhibition
of Self Portraiture, held at the Palace of Fine Arts in New Mexico.
In 1953 five of Kahlo's paintings were included in an exhibition at the
Tate Gallery London, and the same year she had her first solo exhibition
at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Mexico City.

Final Years

Personal tragedy struck in 1953, when due
to complications her right leg was amputated below the knee. Kahlos
last painting, which she completed shortly before she died, was a still
life with watermelons. In the flesh of the melons she inscribed the words
Viva la Vida: Long Life Life! Kahlo died in 1954, at the age
of 47. She spent her life in pain, and wrote in her diary a few days before
her death that she hoped 'the exit is joyful, and I hope never to return'.
During her life Kahlo was mainly known as Diego's wife, but in recent
years her works have become more famous than those of her husband. This
has been partly due to her iconic status as a feminist, as well as the
success of a biography and popular film of her life which reached international
audiences. In 2006 Kahlo's Painting Roots (1943) sold in auction
for $5.6 million dollars, the highest auction record for a Latin American
artist. In 2005, the Tate Modern, London held a major retrospective of
Kahlo's works.